Help Us Test California Drug Rehab Clinic Website, Win an iPod Shuffle

We’re launching a network of directory websites targeting niche industries. The first is going to be one for drug rehab clinics in California. But when you spend a lot of time working on a website, you tend to lose an accurate picture of what the website looks like and how it works for a normal person who is seeing it for the first time. So I’m looking for people who are interested in testing out the site and letting us know if they find problems or have suggestions for improvement. And one lucky tester will win an iPod Shuffle (must submit response by end of day, December 19th, 2009, to be eligible). To be eligible to win the iPod Shuffle, you must find a bug or submit a suggestion in every one of the four areas below (submit your response as a comment on this post). And by “suggestion” I mean an idea of how to improve something, not just pointing out a problem, but a possible solution as well. Especially good submissions will be entered in the drawing for the iPod Shuffle twice. The winner will be notified by a comment on this blog post on Monday, December 21st, 2009.

1. General interface – How does the site look? Does the content on each page of the site make sense? Is it obvious what the site is and how it works?

2. Sign up / create account – Is the sign up process clear and easy to follow? Was there any point at which you were confused about what to do or what was going to happen?

3. Account management – Once signed up, did you have any problems managing your account? Did anything not work as it should? Was anything confusing?

4. Buying homepage listing – Clinics can list themselves for free in the directory, but they can buy extra exposure on the homepage for $10/month. Is this made clear on the website? Is it clear how to go about buying that homepage space both before and after you create a free account? That is, is it clear that you set up the free account first, and then you can upgrade in order to get the homepage listing? Is it clear how to do this once you have already set up your free account?